What is a business case?
A business case is the short written argument for spending money on one option rather than the alternatives, including doing nothing. For a software purchase it is usually one page, because the person who approves it reads many of them and will not read ten pages of yours.
The distinction that matters: a business case is not an ROI calculator. A calculator produces a number from assumptions you chose. A business case states the problem, prices the current way of working, sets out the options, shows the arithmetic with its assumptions visible, names what could go wrong, and asks for a specific decision by a specific date. The number is one section of six.
It is written for the economic buyer, but it is almost never presented by you. Your champion carries it into a room you are not in, so every assumption has to be one they can defend without you. That single constraint explains most of what is in this template and most of what is left out.
Gartner describes consensus creation as one of six "buying jobs" B2B buyers work through on a complex purchase (Gartner, B2B buying journey, accessed 2026-10-15). A business case is the artefact that job runs on: it is how your champion builds agreement among people who were never in a meeting with you, after the evaluation is already over.
When to write one
- Your contact has to get approval from someone who has not met you.
- The spend crosses an approval threshold, so finance or procurement will read it.
- You have been asked "what is the ROI?" and the honest answer is that nobody has agreed what the current way costs.
- The budget exists but has another claim on it, so the comparison is against that other thing rather than against zero.
- The buyer has been burned before by a tool approved on projections nobody revisited.
- Skip it when your contact can sign, the amount is below the threshold and nobody else needs convincing. Then the business case is a conversation, not a document.
Business case, ROI calculator and proposal
These three get used interchangeably and answer different questions. A calculator output pasted into a slide is not a business case: it has no problem statement, no alternatives and no decision ask, which are the three things an approver actually weighs.
| Document | Question it answers | Written for |
|---|---|---|
| Business case | Should we spend this money on this, rather than on something else or nothing? | The person who approves the spend |
| ROI calculator | What return do these assumptions produce? | The person building the case, as an input to it |
| Proposal | What exactly are we buying, on what terms? | The person signing the contract, after the decision |
The business case template
Six sections, one page. Keep every number traceable: if your champion cannot say where a figure came from, cut it. Square brackets mark what you replace. The assumption log is the section that survives contact with finance, because it turns "we think this saves 20%" into a claim with a named owner.
Header
| Field | What to write |
|---|---|
| Requested by | [Name, role] |
| Prepared for | [Name of the person who approves this] |
| Amount | [Annual cost, and the contract term] |
| Decision needed by | [Date, and what happens if it slips] |
The six sections
| Section | What to write | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The problem | Two or three sentences in the approver's language, not the product's. What is happening, to whom, how often. | The buyer said it. Quote them where you can. |
| 2. What today costs | The cost of the current way: time spent, work redone, deals or renewals affected. One line each. | The buyer's own figures. If they will not give you one, use a range and label it an estimate. |
| 3. Options considered | Three rows: do nothing, the cheapest credible alternative, the proposal. What each costs and what each leaves unsolved. | Your own research. "Do nothing" is a real option and must be priced. |
| 4. The numbers | Cost, expected benefit, payback period. Show the assumption beside each figure. | Section 2, plus what the vendor commits to in writing. |
| 5. Risks and what would make this fail | Three honest ones, each with how it is handled. Adoption, integration and the thing nobody controls. | Your own judgement. An approver trusts a case with risks in it more than one without. |
| 6. The ask | The specific decision, the date, and who needs to do what to meet it. | The mutual action plan, if you have one. |
Assumption log (keep it, even on one page)
| Assumption | Value used | Source | If this is wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| [e.g. hours per week spent on X] | [value] | [who said it, when] | [what the payback becomes] |
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A worked example
Example: fictional company
This is the same template filled in for an invented deal, written by the champion rather than the seller.
Northwind Logistics is evaluating an enablement platform. Priya Raman, the enablement lead, wrote this for her finance director after two of four new account executives left before reaching quota. Every figure below belongs to the example, not to any benchmark. Note what it does not do: it quotes no vendor statistic, and every number traces to something Northwind already knew about itself. That is why the champion can defend it.
Northwind Logistics: enablement platform, £[x]k a year
| Section | What the champion wrote |
|---|---|
| The problem | New account executives take about five months before they close their first deal. Two of the four who joined this year have left before reaching quota. |
| What today costs | Ramp is paid for whether or not it works. Four hires a year, five months each at full cost before first revenue. Managers spend roughly a day a week rebuilding material that already exists somewhere. |
| Options considered | Do nothing: ramp stays where it is and the next two hires cost the same. Build internally: six weeks of RevOps time plus ongoing upkeep, and it does not solve content findability. Buy: the proposal below. |
| The numbers | Annual cost [x]. If ramp shortens by four weeks per hire across four hires, that is sixteen weeks of earlier productivity. Payback stated in months, with the ramp figure taken from our own HR records rather than a vendor average. |
| Risks | Adoption: managers have to run the review, so it goes in their weekly cadence from week one. Integration: CRM fields must map, confirmed in the trial. Hiring plan changes: if we hire two rather than four, payback roughly doubles and we would revisit at renewal. |
| The ask | Approve by 14 March so onboarding starts with the April intake. Finance needs the signed order form by the 10th. |
Example: fictional company. Ferncastle Analytics, Harborview Metrics, Marlow & Finch Logistics and every person named in this example are invented for illustration. Any resemblance to real companies or people is coincidental.
How to build one with your buyer
Ask what the number has to pass
A board paper, a budget request and a renewal justification need different depth. Ask what format they have to produce and by when, then write that.
Price the current way first
Before any benefit figure, agree what today costs. Without a baseline there is no return to calculate, and any figure you offer is yours rather than theirs.
Price doing nothing as a real option
Most cases lose to the status quo, not to a competitor. If "do nothing" has no cost written next to it, it looks free.
Show the assumptions beside the numbers
A hidden assumption gets found in the meeting you are not in. A visible one gets argued about in front of you, which is where you want it.
Put three risks in it
An approver who finds the risk themselves stops trusting the rest. Naming it, with how it is handled, is the cheapest credibility available.
Rehearse it with your champion
Ask them to present it back to you in two minutes. Whatever they cannot explain is the part to cut or rewrite.
Common business case mistakes
Using the vendor's benchmark as the benefit
An approver discounts any figure that came from the company selling the thing. Use the buyer's own numbers, even when yours are better.
No cost on doing nothing
The status quo wins by default when nobody prices it. Section 3 exists for this.
Precision that is not real
A payback of "7.4 months" from estimated inputs invites an argument about the decimal. A range with its assumptions stated is more defensible.
Writing it for your champion rather than the approver
Your champion is already convinced. Every sentence should answer the question the person who signs will ask.
No decision ask
A case that ends with "let me know your thoughts" gets thought about. Name the decision and the date.
Leaving out the risks
Omitting them does not make an approver miss them; it makes them wonder what else is missing.
Keeping the case alive after you send it
The business case is usually the last thing a seller writes and the first thing that goes stale. The approver reads it in a meeting you are not in, asks a question, and the answer arrives days later in a forwarded email thread nobody keeps.
In a Revspire Digital Sales Room the business case sits with the rest of the deal material in one place the buying committee shares, so the version they open is the current one rather than whichever attachment they kept.
The same room includes buying-committee stakeholder mapping and buyer-engagement analytics, so a seller can see whether the approver opened the case before the meeting instead of asking the champion to find out.
Business case template FAQs
How long should a business case be?
One page for most software purchases. The approver reads several of these and will not read ten pages of yours. If a committee needs more, attach the detail and keep the one page as the cover.
What goes in a business case for a software purchase?
Six sections: the problem in the approver's words, what the current way costs, the options including doing nothing, the numbers with their assumptions shown, the risks and how each is handled, and a specific decision ask with a date.
What is the difference between a business case and an ROI calculator?
A calculator produces a number from assumptions you chose. A business case states the problem, prices the current way, compares the options, shows the arithmetic with its assumptions visible and asks for a decision. The calculator output is one input to section four.
Who should write the business case, the seller or the buyer?
Both. A case written without the buyer is a proposal with a different title, and one written without the seller usually understates what the current way costs. Draft it together and let the champion own the wording.
How do you price doing nothing?
Take the cost of the current way from section two and project it over the same period as the proposal. If the problem is growing, say so and show the growth. A status quo with no number next to it always looks free.
Related templates and reading
- Free templateSales battlecard templateA one-page card per competitor: why you win, where they are strong, landmine questions, objection responses and pricing guardrails.
- Free templateSales call scorecard templateA weighted 1-5 rubric for scoring recorded calls on agenda, discovery, value messaging, objections, next steps and talk/listen balance.
- Free templateSDR onboarding plan templateA week-by-week ramp plan for SDRs and BDRs: ICP, messaging, sequences, cold calls, qualification and the first qualified meeting, with gates.
- Free templateSales onboarding plan templateA 30-60-90 day plan for new account executives: learn, certify, then sell, with owners, exit criteria and a path to the first closed-won deal.
- What to do when the buyer asks for a return before anyone has agreed what today costs.ROI objection guide
- The dated plan the decision ask in section six should point at.Mutual action plan template
- Work out who actually approves this before writing for them.Stakeholder map template
- Revspire data on which objections appear, what they cost and how deals close.Sales objections benchmark
Sources
- Gartner, The B2B buying journey (2026-10-15 (accessed))